Barbara Tuchman Quotes

The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.

Whoever writes on world history, but not as a forensic history, becomes thereby an accomplice.

History is an illogical record. It hinges on nothing. It is a story that changes, and has accidents, and recovers with scars.

Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.

History is only conjecture, and the best historians try to do it as accurately as they can. They try to accurately reassemble the facts and then put them down on paper.

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.

Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself, 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes, then it's historical. Then ask, 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes, then it's history; if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it's historical drama.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

Historians are responsible not only for the words they write but for the words they don’t write.

I think fiction recues history from its confusions.

We often do not get the first draft of history right.

Most historians don't much like generalizations. Indeed, they make a trade of showing that this or that generalization about the past will not work here or there or then.

History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is, after all, not a science but an art.

Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.

Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than thatsomething has occurred.

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.

To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity.

The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.

I've always been a history buff. It was one of the few subjects at school that really, really caught me. I think you'll find a lot of actors will be interested in history because it sparks your imagination so much. When you enter a period of history, your imagination just goes wild in creating the world, which is really what acting is.